No room for independent thinking

The Closing of the Conservative Mind

Paul Krugman's blog, NYT

Jonathan Chait has an interesting portrait of Josh Barro; Mike Konczal, citing this and also a longer discussion of “reformish” conservatives by Ryan Cooper, argues that there really isn’t much to see here. I agree, and have been trying to pin down what I mean by that.

Start with the proposition that there is a legitimate left-right divide in U.S. politics, built around a real issue: how extensive should be make our social safety net, and (hence) how much do we need to raise in taxes? This is ultimately a values issue, with no right answer.

There are, however, a lot of largely empirical questions whose answers need not, in principle, be associated with one’s position on this left-right divide but, in practice, are. A partial list:

1. The existence of anthropogenic climate change
2. The effects of fiscal stimulus/austerity
3. The effects of monetary expansion, and the risks of inflation
4. The revenue effects of tax cuts
5. The workability of universal health care

(More here.)